


Poach

by BeneficialAddiction



Series: Boxers, Briefs, and Other Shorts [29]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Natasha's recruitment, Strike Team Delta, Undercover Missions, pre Nat/Clint/Phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-28 22:44:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16732059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeneficialAddiction/pseuds/BeneficialAddiction
Summary: Clint Barton walks into a bar and immediately sees the problem in Phil Coulson's plan.





	Poach

As soon as Clint steps into the bar of the Hotel Rivier and scans his surroundings he knows this op isn’t going to be nearly as smooth as everyone thought it would be. On the surface, sure, it’s an easy bag-and-tag, a standard honey-pot mission, but one quick glance around the place puts the kibosh on that. Oh, the setting’s right enough – all low lighting and swanky, high class furnishings – and if Intel’s worth even half their annual budget then they’re right that Agent Gillespie is the perfect bait for their mark, but SHIELD probably knows better than anyone that all the preparation in the world won’t save you if the timing just isn’t right. 

_Shit._

“We got a problem boss,” he mutters under his breath as he slips smoothly across the plush carpet, confidant that the comm in his ear will pick his words up over the low music being pumped in quietly over the speakers. 

“Bull shit!” Bost hisses in his ear, and Clint has to stop himself from flipping a bird his way, toward the back corner where he’s ensconced in shadows along with three other agents, all undercover. “Mullenaux’s right there; there’s no reason to...” 

“All teams stand by,” Coulson cuts in quietly, and Clint’s stomach clenches with the implication that the man trusts him that much, to put the op on hold before he even knows what’s going on. “Talk to me Barton. What do you see?” 

“Mullenaux’s here all right,” Clint breathes as he approaches the bar, lifts his hand to attract the bartender. “But he’s not the only one.” 

The rustle and slide of a missions’ adjustment hangs loudly in the silence, and Clint takes the opportunity to order two fingers of whiskey, neat, while the rest of his team scrambles to change their parameters. 

“We scoped this place from top to bottom,” Bost growls, and Clint bites his tongue as his heart starts to pound in his chest. “There’s no one else here. The Shawley family put a moratorium on the Mullenauxs after the Boston job and no one else...” 

“Trust me Coulson?” Clint asks, because no matter what he’s heard he needs to know, because he’s a sucker for punishment and about to do something very, very stupid. “I know SHIELD wants this guy, but Plan A’s not gonna work. I might be able to work you a Plan B, but...” 

“Barton, you’re my eyes up high, not undercover,” Coulson replies, and damn but it almost sounds like there’s concern in his voice. “What’s going on?” 

Clint swallows hard, takes a long sip of whiskey to cover for time as he watches their mark, Jason Mullenaux, cozy up to a very familiar female at the other end of the bar. The tie that’s looped loosely around his neck suddenly feels like it’s strangling him, and he has to breathe deeply through his nose to hold on to the image of a weary young businessman looking to unwind at the end of a long week, the image of someone he most definitely is not. 

“We’re poaching someone else’s op.” 

It comes across heavy and guilty and reluctant, all the things he most definitely is. He’d been afraid that this would happen one day, that things would come down to the wire and he would have to make a decision, and now... 

Well, now he doesn’t have a lot of options. 

He can back off, let SHIELD do what they do and watch it all fall to shit around them as they try to steal a mark from someone who does not give up their prey without a fight, or he can tell Coulson what he knows and screw his best friend and himself in the bargain. There’s no way he can... 

Or maybe there is. 

“Barton!” 

Clint blinks, picks his glass up off the bar and scans the room again, lets his eyes ghost across the patrons sunk low into velvet couches. He doesn’t react when he catches sight of Coulson stepping into the bar, suit as immaculate as ever despite having been sitting in a cramped, humid surveillance van for the last hour. He’s going off script, coming inside, but you wouldn’t know it what with the way he strides up to the bar and orders a drink less than six seats down from their missions’ objective. 

Smooth bastard - god Clint hates him. 

You know, in that way you hate someone that you’re totally gone for and haven’t got a shot at... 

He is so screwed. 

Oh well, nothing for it really. 

Plan F for Fucked, and not in the Fun way, but at least if it all goes horribly wrong, which he suspects it will, he’ll have half a chance at getting out. 

“Follow my lead Boss?” he murmurs, but it’s not a question, because he’s already slipping slowly down the length of the bar toward his mark, passing behind Coulson on his way and getting a nearly imperceptible nod for his trouble. 

“Hey darlin,’ sorry I’m late,” he says, soft but smarmy as he slides in behind the woman Mullenaux thinks he’s picked up, wrapping his arm around her waist and pecking a kiss to her cheek before hooking his chin over her shoulder. Her hair’s been dyed a platinum blonde and straightened to within an inch of its life, but he’d know her anywhere. “Find something you like?” 

The edge of her mouth curves sharply and to Mullenaux it probably looks like sex, but Clint’s not called Hawkeye for nothing. 

He can read death on Natasha Romanov’s face as easy as breathing. 

“Nadine, what the hell?” Mullenaux demands stupidly, leaning back from where he’d been leaning so far in, caught between glaring at Clint and treating Natasha to a hangdog pout. “Who’s this guy?” 

“Colton Bradford,” Clint says, shoving his hand forward abruptly just to startle Mullenaux into taking it. 

He does – it's an engrained reflex with guys like this – but the look of supreme disappointment in himself that flashes across his face tickles Clint down to his core. He immediately gets to his feet in what must be an attempt at gaining some ground back, but since Clint’s got four inches and about thirty pounds of muscle on him, it’s a failed effort. 

“Oh, don’t be jealous JJ,” Nat – sorry _Nadine_ – giggles, slipping out of Clint’s grasp to slide beneath Mullenaux’s arm, wrapping her own around his shoulders to play with his hair. She peers at Clint with sharp eyes, but they’ve run this game before; she’s already caught on to the play. “Colton’s a sweetheart – you two would get along so well...” 

“I’m not queer,” he hisses, staring daggers at Clint’s benign smile, but despite his vehemence he’s showing incredible reluctance to let Nat go. 

Clint forces himself to laugh, casual and easy, lets his eyes devour Nat’s sleek curves all wrapped up in a silky black dress with a short hem and a plunging neckline. 

“Me either,” he rumbles darkly, never once taking his eyes off Natasha, the picture of an enraptured straight-man. 

It’s not entirely an act. 

It’s been months, years since he’s laid eyes on her in person. 

“Don’t worry handsome,” she purrs in Mullenaux’s ear, her lips brushing against the hinge of his jaw as she holds Clint’s gaze, eyes glinting. “He just likes to watch.” 

A spark flares in Mullenaux’s eye and oh, she’s got him pegged; stupid, power-hungry moron. 

God, he loves the way she can adapt on the fly. 

More interesting still, just beyond them, Coulson’s shoulders tighten. 

“I know I didn’t say before,” Nat continues, pitching her voice small and apologetic. “But you’re just so sweet and strong and good-looking... I didn’t want to scare you away.” 

Clint bites back a snicker – both because Mullenaux’s puffed right up at Natasha’s simpering praise and because she hates this cover, takes special pleasure in doling it out on the biggest idiots she goes after. He frowns, looks Clint up and down as his hand slides from Nat’s waist to her ass, considering. 

“So what, you two just... pick people up?” he asks slowly, darting anxious glances to the left and right, clearly worried that someone’s listening. 

Clint supposes he shouldn’t blame him – Coulson is sitting less than ten yards away and he is most definitely listening. 

Natasha laughs again, her fake laugh, like icicles falling. 

“It’s not so sordid,” she teases, walking her fingers up Mullenaux’s chest from his waistband. “It’s the same as it always is between a man and a woman. You just pretend he’s not even there.” 

“No touching?” he hedges, eyeing Clint warily even as Natasha starts tugging him by the hand toward the bank of elevators. 

Clint raises his hands helpfully, the universal gesture of surrender, and lets his eyes wander past him to Nat, who’s making good use of her cleavage with both hands wrapped around Mullenaux’s wrists. 

He’s hesitant still, that much is obvious. His shoulders are a little tight, and he keeps shooting glances at Clint over his shoulder, but Natasha must have put in the leg work – literally, like, a mile of leg – beforehand. As nervous as he seems, as quickly as Clint had appeared to join in on the fun, he’s letting Nat lead him like a puppy, and ok, this could work, he could make this work. 

He forces himself not to follow Mullenaux’s example and look back. Coulson’s gaze feels like a pin sticking him between the shoulder blades, though he’d bet good money no one else would notice the man looking. He hasn’t said a word over the comms, hasn’t made a sound of protest, and something in Clint’s stomach twists hard and sharp. 

He doesn’t like this – bets Coulson is _hating_ it – but it’s the best plan he’s got and he hopes, he prays it works, prays that Coulson doesn’t feel that same sensation like a knife in his back. 

The look he catches on Coulson’s face just before the elevator doors shut makes his heart twist just as hard.

**AVAVA**

It takes everything Phil has not to curse as Barton disappears into the elevators with their mark and the young woman who had been chatting him up at the bar. He has to purposefully relax his grip on his glass as his lifts it to his mouth, using the rim to mask his heated snarl into the comms.

“All teams hold positions.” 

Damn it, _damn it!_

What the hell is he thinking?! 

Phil takes a deep, subtle breath, a sip of his scotch. 

They have protocols for this of course, to let any agent take over if they have specialized skills or knowledge that become relevant mid-mission, but what... 

Or perhaps he should say _who..._

Phil racks his brain, replays every conversation he’s ever had with Clint Barton, everything he’s ever read about Hawkeye. It’s not difficult – he's got a little bit of an obsession where the archer is concerned – but he’d waltzed right up to that woman like he knew her, and she... 

She’d gone with it like she’d been expecting him. 

Ignoring the twinge in his gut that suggests an old flame, that little needling sensation he feels whenever he sees Clint flirt so easily around HQ, he focuses on what must be fact. 

That woman had played along like the whole thing had been planned. 

He doesn’t think for a moment that Clint’s betrayed SHIELD. He should, he knows that, but after everything he’d gone through to bring the World’s Greatest Marksman in from the cold, he can’t imagine him throwing that away. 

Instinct, logic leads him to believe then that they’ve run this game before together, which means an old partner from the days when Agent Barton had just been Clint, just been Hawkeye. There are no records of him having any real allies at that time, but in truth there aren’t that many records at all. She’s good, the best he’s seen, falling into place without a look crossways, and the only thing, the _one thing_ that stands out from all the files he’s poured over and all the whispers he’s chased is... 

Budapest. 

_The Black Widow._

A weak, watery laugh bubbles up out of Phil’s chest and he sags heavily against the bar, and he can feel the eyes of his fellow agents burning into him, their shocked, uneasy stares. Lifting his hand casually to the back of his neck, he gives the hold signal and flicks onto a private comm line, pulls out his phone and puts Clint onto the same frequency. 

They’re as good as alone, as close as they’re going to get anyway, and you can bet your ass Phil is expecting a show. 

Barton _was_ an ex-circus artist after all. 

The comms are good enough to pick up a bit of ambient noise. He can hear the girl – the Widow, jesus, the _Widow_ – giggling, can hear the low murmur of words spoken just loud enough for the ears they’re being purred into. A ding signals the opening of elevators doors, and Phil hears a low rumble that he knows is Clint, recognizes as one of the familiar humming sounds he likes to make, a purr of his very own. 

It says nothing good about him that he thinks of Clint as a big cat, graceful and deadly, or that nothing makes his chest swell with pleasure and pride like seeing him happy, stretching in the sun. 

Phil grinds his teeth, shakes away the imagery and focuses, because he’s on a live op and one of his assets has just gone seriously off script, with one of SHEILD’s most wanted no less. 

“Get the door darling?” he hears the Widow ask, and Clint is quick to reply, in a honeyed, seductive tone that Phil has never heard before and that sends a bolt of heat straight into his pants. 

“Number 317, you remembered,” he murmurs, and Phil knows it’s for his benefit. 

It puts him a little more at ease – it's nice knowing the location of his asset, of course, but it’s also decent evidence that Clint is keeping him in the loop, not going rogue. 

Shit, they might need that evidence later, and he doesn’t want to think about that. 

“So, uh... you come here often then,” Mullenaux says, half-nervous, half-aroused, and he’s answered by a feminine giggle so sweet Phil nearly gets a second-hand toothache right there at the bar. 

“Let’s just say it’s not our first time,” she replies silkily, and something dark twists in the pit of his stomach. 

The sound of a door being shouldered open rustles across the comms, bodies brushing, and then he hears the door get pushed shut again, heavy and hard. 

“What do we... I mean, he stays over there?” 

“I see better from a distance,” Clint replies, and Phil’s heart slams in his chest. “Besides, she’s the one you should be worried about.” 

A sharp gasp hisses in Phil’s ear, and he strains to catch the thin, scrabbling sounds of a man being neatly and efficiently strangled. Damn it, they need him alive, Barton _knows_ that, but the sound of a body hitting the floor is plain as day before his comm cuts out completely.

**AVAVA**

“Nicely done beautiful.”

The glare Natasha shoots him is sharp enough to cut glass, but then she’s stepping easily over the body and stalking up to him, grabbing him around the shoulders and jerking him in for a hug. It won’t last long – contact with her never does – but it’s just as fierce as she is and no less meaningful in its brevity. 

“Clint.” 

“It’s so good to see you,” he breathes against her hair, eyes suddenly stinging, letting her go when she pulls back to hold him at arm’s length and look him over. 

“It’s good to see you too Little Bird,” she murmurs, her eyes soft, but then she straightens her shoulders and drops her arms and she’s all Widow again, cool and calculating. “What are you doing here?” 

“I’m on an op,” he mumbles, a bit shamefacedly. 

She quirks her eyebrow, unimpressed. 

She knows he’s with SHIELD now – has known, since the very beginning. She knows he’s doing well there, knows he’s... mostly happy. 

“I miss you.” 

“And I miss you,” she concedes, stepping back to crouch down and press her fingers to Mullenaux’s pulse. “But none of this answers my question.” 

“We need him,” Clint replies, before immediately biting his lip because he’s breaking protocol telling her anything. “He’s got information about a smuggling ring that...” 

“I’m aware,” Natasha says coolly. “One that peddles in more than just drugs.” 

Oh. 

Well see, there’s a little piece of information that would be helpful to know right there. 

Explains why Natasha was after him. 

“You weren’t going to kill him,” Clint argues, against what he doesn’t know. “You never would have let yourself be seen in the bar with him if you planned to kill him.” 

“If I planned to kill him _tonight,_ you mean,” she corrects. “Why are you _here_ Clint?” 

And that’s the thing isn’t it? 

The reason he’d done all this. 

“I couldn’t let them poach your op,” he says with a sigh. “I couldn’t let them run up on you, if you didn’t...” 

“You still want me to come in.” 

Clint frowns, crosses the room and sinks down onto the edge of the bed to bury his face in his hands. 

“I miss you,” he says again, an explanation and a declaration all in one. “I... I miss working with you. I remember what it was like, running ops with you, and my handler, Coulson, he...” 

“The one you’re falling in love with,” she accuses, cutting right to the core. “Is he listening?” 

“Not since you dropped him,” Clint says, gesturing to the man lying unconscious on the floor between them. “But he’ll be up here any minute - he doesn’t leave anyone behind. I wanted... I wanted you to have a choice.” 

“What choice?” she spits, as close to angry with him as she ever gets. 

Clint just smiles at her sadly. 

“To run.” 

“You...” 

He’s surprised her, shockingly, but he supposes he can’t judge her for it. 

She knows what he’s like, with the things and the people that he cares about, and obviously she’s read between the lines he’s fed her about Phil Coulson. 

She also knows what he’s offering. 

“If you want to go, I’ll take the heat,” he says with a shrug and a grin that’s not nearly as easy as it’s meant to look. “No worries Nat. Nothing will change, for me or for us. But if you want to go you need to do it now. I... I want _you_ to make that decision, not SHIELD.” 

The softness is back in her eyes and it creates an ache somewhere down deep in his chest, but damn him if every word isn’t true. He wants more than almost anything to have her back at his side, to be wreaking havoc and getting shit done with Coulson’s voice in his ear and her at his side, but he won’t make that choice for her, won’t take it away. He’ll let her walk, even if that means... 

He doesn’t want to think about what that might mean. 

Maybe she sees that in him, maybe she reads it on his face or hears it in his voice or feels it in the kiss he presses to her forehead, because three minutes later, when Phil Coulson kicks in the door of their hotel room with his gun drawn, she’s still there, sitting on the bed with Clint’s head in her lap, combing her fingers through his hair.

**AVAVA**

Phil’s heart stops in his chest when he comes crashing into the hotel room to find Mullenaux on the floor and Clint Barton lying sprawled on the bed with the Black Widow’s hands pressed to his temples. His gun goes immediately to her forehead, and for a split second he thinks he sees approval in her eyes, but before he can make any demands, before he can tighten his finger on the trigger, Barton waves a hand in his general direction and grins at him lazily.

“Hey Boss. Think we could maybe all talk for a minute?” 

Phil blinks, stares, and is unforgivably proud of himself when he doesn’t bark a laugh right then and there. 

He has to remind himself that they obviously know each other, that they’re colleagues willing to work together at the very least if that show down at the bar was evidence of anything, but coming in to find Clint splayed out underneath the Widow – he'd thought... 

It doesn’t matter what he thought. 

Clint’s ok – apparently – and the Widow isn’t making any sudden movements, and... 

Oh who is he kidding, this whole thing is ridiculous. 

“Um, Coulson?” 

“My apologies,” he says suddenly, holstering his handgun smoothly as he’s knocked out of his minor panic by Clint’s hesitant question. 

Barton, hell, _Barton’s_ question. 

“You’ll have to forgive my manners,” he says, cool and just a tiny bit snide. “I wasn’t expecting to cross paths with the Black Widow on this particular occasion. Or that my asset would be so well acquainted with her.” 

The narrow-eyed look he shoots Barton has the unfortunate effect of earning Phil a blush and a pair of puppy-eyes that are far more adorable than chastised. 

“Sorry Sir,” he mumbles, sitting up awkwardly and trading a glance with the deadly assassin beside him. “I didn’t know how else to tell you.” 

“You didn’t tell me at all,” Phil points out, irked but not nearly as furious as he should be. 

Lifting a hand to his comm, his gives the _all-clear_ and _hold_ commands to the agents he’d left in the stairwell several feet down the hall. Stepping back, he crouches beside Mullenaux’s body and is surprised to feel a strong, steady pulse thumping at the base of his throat. 

“He’s been funding the Shawley smuggling ring through an off-shore account based out of South America,” the Widow says calmly, watching Phil as he pulls some flex cuffs from his inner jacket pocket and sets about strapping Mullenaux’s wrists together. “Three million dollar buy-in. Got him out of their black-books and in return for continued partnership, he gets to sample the product.” 

“We’ve got no evidence that Mullenaux’s hooked on anything,” he argues. “We’ve had two undercovers offer him...” 

“Coke’s not all they’re peddling boss.” 

Phil’s head snaps up and he looks at Cling with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, is halfway relieved when he sees the cool, controlled fury in the Widow’s eyes. 

“May I safely assume this is why you were after Mullenaux as well?” he asks. 

“I don’t like pimps, or slave holders,” she replies simply. 

“Well that’s one thing we have in common then,” he says, straightening up and stepping forward to offer her his hand. 

“Not only one, I think,” she replies, flicking a glance at the back of Clint’s head before accepting his hand. “Natasha Romanov.” 

“Phil Coulson.” 

“Sweet,” Clint says cheerily with a bright grin, looking back and forth between them like they’re his two favorite toys, and Phil absolutely does _not_ think about how that makes him feel. “So I know you kinda just got stuck holding the bucket with me boss, but um, what do you think about maybe taking on another asset?” 

Phil blinks, looks between him and Romanov, the one face curious, hesitant, and wary, the other beaming, cautious and hopeful. 

“You’re interested in joining SHIELD?” he asks dumbly, and the Widow’s mouth quirks. 

“I am interested in joining my old partner,” she says carefully, and Phil gets the very distinct impression that she’s watching him for some kind of a reaction. “He says you are a good man, that SHIELD does good things. I know how well we work together, what we could do for you.” 

“I can’t make you any promises,” Phil hears himself say dutifully, though hell, on the inside he’s doing jumping jacks. 

To have the Black Widow in their employ, to see the Widow and Hawkeye working together, with him... 

He can already picture it, and suddenly and very strongly, he _wants._

“I wouldn’t trust you if you did,” the Widow replies, and Clint hisses at her to be nice under his breath, but the corner of her mouth has quirked and Phil thinks he’s passed her test. 

“Well then,” he says, squaring his shoulders as his heart pounds in his chest. “Welcome to SHIELD Ms. Romanov.” 

Sliding to her feet, the Widow offers him a nod and a grin that looks like a wolf bearing its teeth. 

“I have a feeling we are going to be good friends you and I,” she says, and behind her Clint’s eyes go the size of dinner plates. 

“Aw, Nat, don’t...” 

“Barton, carry the bags,” Phil interrupts, offering Natasha his arm in a spurt of idiotic bravado. 

To be fair, there’s really nothing else to be done. 

Clint frowns and grumps, hauling himself off the bed to lean down and drag Mullenaux over his shoulder into a fireman’s carry, but there’s a relief and an excitement on his face that’s poorly hidden. 

“Someone’s in the dog house,” Romanov snickers in Russian, twining her arm through the crook of Phil’s elbow, much to his surprise. 

Clint sticks his tongue out at her and Phil shakes his head. 

“Not yet he’s not,” he replies in kind, though obviously his accent isn’t nearly as passible as hers. “He will be when I bust him back to basic right along with you.” 

Romanov raises that perfect, manicured eyebrow and smiles, something softer and more genuine this time. 

“Oh yes, Phil Coulson, _very_ good friends.” 

Clint just huffs and rolls his eyes, leading the charge out into the hall where he dumps his still-unconscious load into the waiting arms of a stunned missions team. 

Phil doesn’t question it when he moves to Romanov’s other side to take her free arm. Doesn’t question it when the Widow pulls them both in tighter to her sides. He’ll think about it later, start to question all the things that are bubbling and simmering under the surface here, but for now he lets her stride forward with her head high, lead _them_ out to the waiting SUV’s that will ferry them to the Quinjet. 

He isn’t sure what’s started here tonight, but he can already tell that nothing is going to be the same.

**Author's Note:**

> Totally didn't see this turning into a pre Clint/Nat/Phil fic, but I love the way it went!


End file.
